


Requiem

by vague_ambition



Series: to love and be loved [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, F/M, Grimmauld Place, M/M, Remus Lupin & Harry Potter Friendship - Freeform, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Summer 1996, and so does Harry, but I promise the rest of the series will be happier, dealing with grief, it's mostly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 13:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16619702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vague_ambition/pseuds/vague_ambition
Summary: “I also came because,” Harry tried to hide a sniffle. “Ron and Hermione, they don’t really get it, y’know? And when I realized there was someone else who might...might really miss him for him instead of who he was in the Order, or whatever.”or, Harry finds out about Remus and Sirius, goes to check on Remus, and they have a heart-to-heart.





	Requiem

It was mid-July (twenty five days since Sirius had died, but who was counting) and Remus was laying back in his and Sirius’s bed—or just his bed, now, he supposed—when a knock sounded on the door, startling him out of his skin. He jumped up, wand in his hand, as it edged open.

“Professor Lupin, sorry, Remus, it’s just me,” Harry said, startled. 

“Oh, Harry,” Remus began, before realizing himself. “What was the last thing you fire-called myself and Sirius Black about?” 

“What was—oh, the security questions,” the boy realized. “Uh, a memory of Snape’s I saw in the Pensieve, wasn’t it?” Remus nodded. 

“What brings you here, Harry?” he asked. He hadn’t expected Harry to return to Grimmauld Place without Sirius’s presence to bring him there. “I thought you were staying at the Weasleys?”

“I am,” he began, looking uncomfortable. “I...uh, Sirius left me the house in his will and,” 

Remus’s heart sank. He had expected that he couldn’t stay at Grimmauld Place forever—if he had the funds, he wouldn’t have stayed there a second after Sirius’s death, he would have burned the bloody place to the ground like Sirius always wanted to, he would have cursed the ashes for being Sirius’s final, hated prison, the one that drove him to—

“Of course,” he said, stopping his thoughts in their tracks. “I should have asked you if you were okay with me staying here. I can be out by next week, it’s not a problem—”

Harry interrupted him quickly. “No, that’s not it! I just felt bad for barging in on you, I wanted to explain how I had a set of the keys. Please, you can stay here for as long as you like.” 

“Oh. Thank you, Harry. Come on, I’ll make us a spot of tea,” Remus responded, feeling pathetically grateful. He owed most of his life to a Potter or a Black heir, it would seem. Harry dutifully followed him into the kitchen and sat in silence while Remus went through the familiar ritual of making Earl Grey. “Now,” he said finally, sitting down across from Harry. “What brings you here?” 

“I wanted to talk to you,” Harry said, again looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.” 

Remus was surprised. He had expected some Defense question, or some kind of theory about Voldemort, not a...check-in? “I’m fine, Harry, of course.” Harry merely raised an eyebrow, sass that he definitely inherited from Lily. 

“Forgive me for assuming, but this place looks as bad as it did at the beginning of last summer. And you’ve only been here alone for what...a month?” He retorted with a frankness and lack of tact that reminded Remus of a young James. Merlin, he was just seeing the dead everywhere.

“I’ve been busy,” Remus lied.

“No you haven’t, I asked Mrs. Weasley. She said you’ve not been at Order business since...y’know.” Damn it. 

“Ah.” 

“And I asked Mrs. Weasley why—I thought you might have been off with the werewolves again, you see, but she said you were on leave for the time being.” Harry pressed on. 

“Am I? That’s news to me,” Remus commented mildly. 

“Well, she said they decided to just not give you anything,” the young man amended. Remus looked at him, surprised.

“How does that end up with you checking on me?” he asked, cautiously. 

“Well, then I asked why,” Harry continued, seemingly having reached his point. “And she said that it was because you and Sirius were involved. Romantically.” 

“Ah.” Remus said again. 

“And I figured, that if that was true, and Mrs. Weasley seemed pretty confident about it, I should check on you.” 

“Well. Yes. We. Yes.” Remus forced out, fighting back sudden tears that were threatening to make a reappearance, and since when did he cry this much? Also, of course Lily and James’s child’s first thought upon finding out that his godfather was with his father’s other old friend would be to worry about him. It was just so fitting—with the empathy between those two for their friends, Harry wouldn’t be their child otherwise. 

“How come he didn’t tell me?” Harry said, his voice low. “I wouldn’t have minded. It would’ve been nice to know that he, and you, had someone.” 

Remus chuckled, but he could tell it was more watery than amused. “We didn’t exactly hide it, Harry. You’re just your father’s son. He could be remarkably unobservant, you know.”

“Wait, everyone knew?” Harry said, shocked. “Nobody said anything to me?” Remus laughed again, a little more solidly this time. 

“Harry, we kissed while you were in the room. Everyone assumed you knew.” Harry stared at him in shock and then laughed a little.

“Hermione always does say I don’t use my eyes,” he admitted. “Have you been together since Hogwarts?”

“As much as my teenage self would have liked that, no. We didn’t have much time. We only...he came to my parents’ old cottage a few days after I resigned from Hogwarts. He told me then, more or less. I…” Remus took a shaky breath and wiped away a tear that had escaped, despite his best efforts. “I’ve been in love with him since I was a kid, though. I’m lucky I even got two years.” More tears followed. He really did not want to break down in front of Harry.

Remus was surprised when Harry stood up and wrapped him in a hug. He tried to stop crying with a few more, shuddering breaths, but when Harry pulled away, he noticed his green eyes were glimmering suspiciously as well.

“I also came because,” he tried to hide a sniffle. “Ron and Hermione, they don’t really get it, y’know? And when I realized there was someone else who might...might really miss him for him instead of who he was in the Order, or whatever.” 

“Merlin, Harry.” Remus said, almost wanting to laugh at how stupid he had been to ignore the pain Harry must be feeling, losing his only kind of parent figure. “Anybody who doesn’t miss Sirius for who he is—was—is an idiot who never saw the best parts of him.” 

“But you did?” The kid perked up significantly, and Remus felt like he couldn’t refuse him. 

“Want to see something?” he asked, standing up to grab the photo album he and Sirius had kept in lieu of a coffee table book. Harry nodded eagerly. Remus opened the album and flipped to the last picture in it. It was taken not three months before. Sirius had run up behind Remus, surprising him by wrapping his arms around his waist and kissing him on the neck. Remus, in the photo, laughed and beamed, before turning slightly to kiss his partner, who seemed to glow in kind.

Remus wished he could put himself back into that photo, change the future, save the man he loved. But all he could do now was to talk to Sirius’s godson (and Lily and James’s son) about how wonderful the people who loved him had been. 

“You were like this the whole time and I didn’t notice?” Harry asked, somewhat rhetorically. Remus nodded nonetheless. “I’m glad you had each other.”

“Me too, Harry. And although I would give anything for another day with him, I wouldn’t give up the time I had with him for anything.” 

“Even knowing what was coming?”

“Even knowing that.” 

Harry smiled, a somewhat tear-marred smile but genuine nonetheless, and flipped back through the photos. He paused on one that Remus knew well, of Remus, Peter, and Sirius laughing and beaming while fireworks exploded in the Great Hall and James, on one knee, was proposing to Lily, who then swooped their friend into a kiss. 

“What’s this?” he asked, after staring at it for a good two minutes.

“Sirius never told you how your father asked your mum to marry him?” Remus responded, smiling fondly at the picture. Harry shook his head. “Well, that is quite the story.” 

For the first time in twenty five days (but who was counting), Remus didn’t feel as though the world was over. It was much darker, but he would help and protect the boy who Sirius, James, and Lily had loved as long as he could.

Until he could see Sirius again.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this was sad. I'm sorry! I promise the rest of the fics in this series will either be bittersweet or amazingly happy. The next three planned are the Proposal Story, a one-shot from the 'Lie Low at Lupin's' era, and a kind of description of the whole Tonks/Lupin sitch. The fourth planned is a multi-chapter thing, in the works: a canonical Bring Black Back (and Remus, obviously) that both saves their lives and fits with the info in Deathly Hallows!


End file.
